"Bull's eye," headlined the Dutch-speaking De Standaard newspaper. "A pure jewel" the Francophone Le Soir had on its front page, showing that the ever-bickering linguistic groups in this culturally divided nation had found a rare issue on which they could agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slokid

I wouldn't put much weight to what Xan Brooks says, he comes off as a bit of a twat quite often in his reviews.

Yeah, a lot of Guardian readers said the same thing

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

It's so utterly over the top, that review. Comic book devotees are just about the hardest crowd to please, though.

Each time one of the classic comic book, regardless of its origin, gets made into a movie, you get a whole group screaming bloody murder.

I'm going to watch the movie next week, if things go well. I don't expect the movie experience to match Hergé's magic on paper but I do have faith in the Spielberg/Jackson/Moffat combo. (not forgetting the film score by John Williams, another legend)

The last trailer (the one I posted here) had a LOT of action in it which looks great but I do hope that the storyline is solid (instead of jumping from gag to gag).

As things are heating up, I thought it might be a good idea to put up some of the great artwork other artists put up as tribute to Tintin. One (con?)artist everyday till we fans have watched the movie and know who was more inspired from the series, these comic artists or the Hollywood Brigade!

I'll start with Yves Rodier's work here:

Fans can read the whole comic here; if you scroll downwards this forum:

Some of his older album covers. I believe he drew up the whole of 'alpha-art' (Herge's last and unfinished Tintin) at the age of 15:

This is a minor gem (Tintin on the Red Planet):

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

I am quite stunned by the success of the TV series because it just doesn't match up to the aesthetics, vibrancy or details of the comic book - even the animation is all wrong, any artist would tell you. The movie would fare better there.

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

The featured artist for the day is Enki Bilal, the amazing Serbian filmmaker and graphic novelist. He directed the movie based on his comic trilogy 'Immortal'. Couple of his tributes:

For Bilal, Tintin is always wounded, injured or underground. Because that's how he perceives nobility in the 21st century:

What I like best about this image is this is how Bilal sees Tintin. As we can see, Tintin generously cuts off his own ear to put it on the Fetish.

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

Today's featured artist is the brilliant Polish comic creator Grzegorz Rosinski (of 'Thorgal' fame). Here, we can see his tribute to Herge's Prisoners of the Sun, sketched in 1981. Herge's original frames in their 'ligne claire' style are below his drawings. BTW, 'Prisoners of the Sun' is up next after 'The Secrets of the Unicorn' in the movies.

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

Like many other fans - and Moulinsart - I was initially offended by Ole Ahlberg's portrayals of Tintin. His dark and seductive tributes felt way over the top considering how Tintin has no love interest in the series, but in retrospect, I feel Ahlberg tries to reclaim the sexual territory and with his erotic paintings finally put a cap on Tintin's sexual orientation. Here are some of his surreal tributes:

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

First up, Andy Warhol's personal tribute to Herge. Apparently, he was inspired by Herge's clear outline style. There's a nice interesting piece by a journo I've put under the tribute where she explains the connection between the artists:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carolyn McDowell

Iconic American artist Andy Warhol was quoted in 1999 as saying ‘Hergé has influenced my work in the same way as Walt Disney’. ‘For me’ he said, ‘Hergé was more than a comic strip artist’. Warhol utilized the drawing style developed by Hergé, which is known internationally in the world of art as the ‘linge claire’ technique.

He also made a series of paintings commissioned by Hergé with himself as subject. An exhibition at Paris’s prestigious Pompidou Centre in 2006 put forward the idea of Hergé as an artist. And as it is one of the world’s most iconic modern art institutes it made a huge impact and caused controversy. Laurent Le Bon Co-curator of “Hergé” the exhibition said at the time to the reporter from The Independent ‘the importance of this show is that we are showing the work of Hergé in the same building as Matisse and Picasso’.

Hergé was a wonderful storyteller in pictures but there will be always those who dispute his claim to be an ‘artist’. Is it reasonable to separate the pictures from the stories and call them art? As The Independent reported the minimalist French artist Jean-Pierre Raynaud, who was a friend of Hergé, believes such a claim can be justified. “He has a precision of the kind I love in Mondrian. He has the artistic economy that you find in Matisse’s drawings. He perfectly crystallises what he wants to say and, as a result, his work never ages.”

Next is the iconic pop-artist Roy Lichtenstien (Don't tell me you don't remember those comic book panels hanging in every dim and shady bar!)who did this cover for a novel called TINTIN IN THE NEW WORLD:

Finally, we have pop artist Guy Peellaert's tribute - he did album covers for Rolling Stones and Bowie - through his creation Pravda:

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

These five utterly bizarre tributes were entire albums dedicated to Tintin. Each of these artists, Calza, Roulin, Maret, Mibe and Sen are accomplished comic artists and made Tintin tributes based on their own style. Each book costs 25 euros and these are supposed to be pastiches! Anyways ...

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TELLING IT LIKE IT IS:"“Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer ...But every man wants to BE Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” --PHILIPPE BOUIN, writer; also, a rare, unbiased Frenchman

So, I saw the Tintin movie last night. As you can tell by my username and my avatar, I'm a big Tintin fan (Hergé fan, he has written more than Tintin. His Quick & Flupke series is awesome for example). Needless to say, I went in with high expectations.

I’ll leave out story spoilers.

As was clear going into the movies, they used 3 Tintin books for this movie.
(1) The crab with the golden claws
(2) The secret of the unicorn
(3) Red Rackham’s treasure

Just a few thoughts:

The movie starts with the secret of the unicorn (with a very nice cameo for Hergé). Tintin and Haddock were already friends in book (2) but the moviemakers wanted to introduce captain Haddock (which happens in book (1)), so they had to change quite a bit to make that happen. In the beginning of book (2), Haddocks tells about his ancestor sir Françis of Hadoque and he does so with ferver and passion. It’s a hilarious part of the book so I was afraid that I was going to miss out on that with the changes to the movie. However, I didn’t need to fear: they simply moved that part to another section of the story and they handled captain Haddock’s storytelling scene very well.

Beforehand, I feared a bit for Tintin’s dog Snowy. (the dog has his own text balloons in the books for example). Another fear squashed. In fact, Snowy was just about my favorite character of the bunch, which was a surprise. He is really, really cute.

I loved seeing Brussels at the start of the movie, including those lovely, lovely cars back in the day (instead of removing Tintin from his time and putting him in the modern world of today, as they did for The Smurfs movie). I plan on visiting that flea market where Tintin bought the ship some time next week or so.

Jamie Bell does a fantastic job with Tintin. I love his voice.

Bianca Castafiore makes an appearance, which doesn’t happen in those 3 books. Very nice touch, though! The friend I was with was surprised to see that she can actually sing very well but that was no surprise to me because Castafiore is a famous opera singer after all. It’s just that Haddock HATES opera singing (Castafiore was introduced by Hergé after one of his friends, Edgar P. Jacobs (another great comic book artist) took him to an opera once. Hergé didn’t like it at all and he introduced Castafiore as a joke to his friend so that he could make fun of opera throughout the series).

Going into the movie, I was afraid of the pace of the movie. Hergé was a master story teller and the rhythm he used to tell his stories was a delicate and careful procedure. He excelled in that. For the movie, Spielberg had to speed it up to get more action in. He did that well but I must say that I do prefer Hergé’s story telling rhythm (but then again, paper is more patient).

In the very beginning of the movie, there’s an animation to introduce the main crew who have worked on this movie. Really great fun to see, but it would have been even better if they’d used the clear line Hergé was famous for.

I don’t know when exactly but at some point in time (was it the 50s?), the US market showed an interest in publishing the Tintin series in the USA on the condition that they would be adapted for the US market. They asked Hergé to make some changes. They had done so with Lucky Luke (made by Morris) as well. Lucky Luke smokes but the US editor figured that this wasn’t a good role model for kids so they asked Morris, the artist, to remove the cigarettes. Since Morris couldn’t simple delete the cigarettes because Lucky Luke does clearly have something between his lips, Morris replaced the cigarette with a straw. So, Morris complied.
Hergé was asked to cut down on captain Haddock’s swearing and insults + Hergé had to remove the alcohol. Luckily for us, Hergé refused. Remove Haddock’s swearing and love for the bottle and you might as well erase the entire character. (I've always wondered if this was part of the reason why the Tintin books never really broke through in the USA, because Hergé didn't want to adapt the series to that market).
For this movie, I was afraid that they were again going to cut down on these habits of Haddock. On the contrary, they went the other way. In the books, Haddock clearly loves his drink but not all the time. It’s only once in a while that you see those scenes but there’s plenty in between when Haddock is clearly sober. In the movies, he goes from one bottle to the other. I think that they went too far with that. Mixed feelings about the movie's Haddock. He's great fun at times but they went too far in other parts.

Professor Calculus was introduced in book (3), Red Rackham’s treasure. He plays a crucial part in that book. He does not appear in the movie at all. I miss him.

Hergé’s bad guys were never bad through and through. They always had some sort of quirk that made you chuckle. Spielberg’s bad guy is evil through and through. Ivan Saccharin disappears quite quickly in the books but he’s a huge part of the movie (they changed quite a bit actually). I also have mixed feelings about that.

All in all, I had great fun. It's clear to see that the movie was made by people with love and respect for Hergé's work but...
The books >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the movie (but that's usually the case, isn't it?)